Case: Virginia Duncan, et al. v. Rob Bonta, Attorney General of California, No. 25-198
Lower Court: Ninth Circuit
Docketed: 2025-08-19
Status: Pending
Question Presented: 1. Whether a ban on the possession of exceedingly common ammunition feeding devices violates the Second Amendment. 2. Whether a law dispossessing citizens, without compensation, of property that they lawfully acquired and long possessed without incident violates the Takings Clause.
The Court distributed Duncan v. Bonta for its ninth conference on March 20, 2026, following supplemental briefs filed by both parties on March 11 and March 13. The volume of relisting suggests the justices are giving this petition serious attention rather than moving toward a routine denial.
Petitioners, led by Virginia Duncan, challenged California's magazine-capacity ban on Second Amendment and Takings Clause grounds after proceedings in the Ninth Circuit.
The two questions presented are analytically distinct. The Second Amendment question concerns whether the ban on common ammunition feeding devices is constitutional. The Takings question is less commonly litigated in the firearms context and could attract attention independent of the Second Amendment analysis. Petitioner's counsel Erin E. Murphy has framed the dispossession argument as a straightforward property rights claim requiring compensation.
Repeated conferencing combined with supplemental briefing typically precedes either a grant or a closely reasoned denial with noted dissents. The Court's willingness to sit with this petition signals that at least some justices view the Ninth Circuit's resolution as worth examining.